1. NIRSS: the Near-Infrared Sky Surveyor WFIRST Meeting 2011 February 3 Daniel Stern (JPL/Caltech)

2. Mark Brodwin (Harvard/CfA)Jason Kalirai (STScI) Asantha Cooray (UC-Irvine)Amy Mainzer (JPL/Caltech) Roc Cutri (IPAC/Caltech)Leonidas Moustakas (JPL/Caltech) Arjun Dey (NOAO)Jason Rhodes (JPL/Caltech) Peter Eisenhardt (JPL/Caltech)Adam Stanford (UC-Davis) Anthony Gonzalez (Univ. Florida)Edward L. Wright (UCLA)

3. Mark Brodwin (Harvard/CfA)Jason Kalirai (STScI) Asantha Cooray (UC-Irvine)Amy Mainzer (JPL/Caltech) Roc Cutri (IPAC/Caltech)Leonidas Moustakas (JPL/Caltech) Arjun Dey (NOAO)Jason Rhodes (JPL/Caltech) Peter Eisenhardt (JPL/Caltech)Adam Stanford (UC-Davis) Anthony Gonzalez (Univ. Florida)Edward L. Wright (UCLA)

4. NIRSS would obtain full sky near-infrared images in four bands, reaching 0.2 μ Jy depths (25.6 mag, AB) Images of GOODS-S field at 2.2 μ m (K-band; 2.4 arcmin/side), obtained by 2MASS (left) and deep VLT/ISAAC observations (right). NIRSS will reach five times deeper than the VLT observations, over more wavelengths, with better spatial resolution... and across the whole sky!

5. “Strawman” NIRSS Design Primary Mirror Diameter: 1.5 meter (0.2” diff. limit at 1.2 μ m) Focal Plane:36 HgCdTe arrays Image Scale:0.25”/pixel Wavelength Coverage:4 bands, 1-4.2 μ m Survey Depth:0.2 μ Jy, full-sky Optical Design:f/10.6 TMA Launch Vehicle/Orbit:Delta IV / L2 orbit Temperature:65 K (passive cooling) Mission Duration:4 yr. core mission

6. NIRSS Mechanical Design

7. “Strawman” Focal Plane Array (FPA) Focal plane populated with nine JWST/NIRCam modules. Each module is comprised of four 2048x2048 Hawaii 2RG HgCdTe arrays, with each quadrant observing a different bandpass. Total FOV is 1.6 deg in diameter. [Requirements on readnoise/dark current reduced from JWST.]

8. “2MASS/WISE on steroids” Near-Infrared Surveys

9. clustered emission from first generation of star formation in the Universe; expected at near-infrared wavelengths Goal #1: Diffuse IR Background from Pop III Stars

10. predicted number of high-redshift quasars from SDSS QLF (Fan et al. 2001, 2004) Goal #2: The Most Distant QuasarsRedshiftUKIDSSNIRSS 6<z<870-150~100,000 8<z<101.3-2.6~35,000 z>12–~7,000 z>20–~100

11. simulated photometric redshift accuracy, assuming 4% floor Goal #3: Stellar & Dark Matter Content of Galaxies LSST alone LSST + NIRSS

12. accurate (z>1) photometric redshifts aid weak lensing analysis by separating sources into redshift bins and differentiating background and foreground sources Goal #3: Stellar & Dark Matter Content of Galaxies

13. optical CMD for NGC 6397 (globular cluster) from HST/ACS Goal #4: The Coldest “Stars” probing below the hydrogen-burning limit (e.g., brown dwarfs) in a range of environments the coldest white dwarfs

14. Goal #5: Guest Observer Program ? Trust the community to figure out the best use of a flexible, powerful, unique facility

15. Targets for JWST and TMT/ELT’s. Compliments Pan-STARRS/LSST + WISE. Summary

16. FOM for an Extragalactic IR Sky Survey etendue (area x depth) # filters sampling / pixel scale imaging + spectroscopy? extragalactic + Galactic robust GO program time domain uniqueness of space? or FOM based on science plans – e.g., FOM for # of high-z QSO’s, other planned science goals (but then how to weight them)